


We Don't Need Words

by Angie13



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27127600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angie13/pseuds/Angie13
Summary: Post-Movie.  Hansel and Gretel communicate.  Or don't.  It's all in your definition.
Relationships: Gretel & Hansel (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters), Gretel/Hansel (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters), Hansel/Mina (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	We Don't Need Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Huntress79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/gifts).



“So, uh, do you want to talk about it?” Gretel cringed when the words left her mouth but, true to form, her mask of wry indifference held firm as she glanced sideways at her brother. When his only response was a low grunt and his attention never wavered from the spread of random metal pieces laid across the wooden table, she allowed herself the actual, physical cringe. Augsburg was miles behind them but she knew it lingered in his mind as much as it did hers. Augsburg and all the ills done to them - their parents, their childhood, and Mina. Mina - the most recent injury, a perfect innocent, a good soul, and someone she could have shared all with. She heard Ben moving around in the room next door and knew Edward was out in the stables. Idly, she moved to the window and glanced down into the dark courtyard beneath their room.

Easy access, easy escape. The sloped stable roof was a long jump from their window but not impossible in the slightest. The front door, easily seen from the window. Even with the uneven visibility of a night lit by a half-moon, they would know their way. Despite the strange, misleading whisper of dying leaves and the heavy mist that clung to everything, making the world sodden and dull and threatening of the approaching winter.

Their party number had doubled but she and Hansel would not change their habits and could not change their knowledge. Their lives held true, no matter what. They had each other. They would always have each other - no matter what.

She fingered the catch on the window in an attempt to direct the nervous energy creeping up her spine. She wanted to help him but felt the rare wall between them on the topic. Much like discussions of their parents were once marked with a big X, anything about Mina seemed to be sliding that direction. She hated inaction. She hated not knowing what step to take. For all the near-mythic tales of the siblings’ reckless hunts, Gretel knew that she always looked before leaping. She thought and considered and acted. Any hesitation burned away in the preparation and Hansel trusted her to never lead them astray. She glanced sideways again, watching him work on the new weapon. His strong fingers tested bits of metal with sudden flexes. A calloused thumb rubbed over a curve as if checking for snarls of unshaven bits. 

Watching him put together a new weapon always felt a bit like watching a master magician. This piece fit into that one when anyone with eyes knew it should not. This knob of wood or coil of wire pulled everything into place seamlessly. He made surprisingly little noise. Gretel had lost count of the times she woke up in the morning to find him working. As her gaze drifted to his face, she remembered his reluctance to speak of what woke him so early on those occasions. More often than not, he would draw her in with an arm around her hips and rest his head against her. Then, in between explaining his brainstorm and how efficient it would be, he let bits of the nightmares drop for her to scavenge, rearrange, digest, and handle. He never dreamed of their family, he swore as she stroked his rumpled hair. He dreamed of fire and blood and falling and always their wicked prey. What woke him in cold sweats, he whispered, was her, losing her. His expression on those mornings and the rawness of the words pressed against that precarious wall of his. Gretel stared at Hansel’s face now, chasing an idea.

Intense concentration, a furrowed brow, biting his lower lip… And the old, worn creases that grew with each passing year of their lives together. Each one spoke eloquently of hardship or pain or loss except for those precious small ones at the corner of his eyes that reminded her of his mischief and quick-silver grins. She felt her own lips twitch in responsive memory.

Then she remembered the look on his face as they stood over Mina’s grave and it echoed the same look glimpsed when he had thought he had lost his Gretel - before Mina’s sacrifice, back in the house of their childhood. Absolute terror and fury and soul-biting heartbreak. Two sides of the same coin. Her own face had mirrored his at that moment, after all. Her heart shuddered and her fingers moved to grip the windowsill for a moment. Loss. They both faced it and feared it but never before as keenly as with each other. Not until now. Mina’s death burned him down inside and left the same hollow look in his eyes as his nightmares.

The nightmares about her… And her nightmares about him which she knew matched his.

“Hansel?” Gretel hardly knew when she had left the window but she bent behind him, looped her arms loosely about his neck, and rested her cheek against his hair. “You don’t have to talk about it,” she murmured. “Because I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

The bits of metal fell from his fingers, a strangely musical symphony as they landed on the wooden table. “I promise,” he echoed. Then, moving as slowly as if waking from a dream, he twisted in her hold and buried his face against her stomach. “Always.” 

His arms moved to wrap around her hips, claiming, and she curved her body down to envelop him more firmly, contorting until her lips pressed kisses into his hair. “Always and forever.” Then she closed her eyes and smiled.


End file.
